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Study: Millennials indifferent to online risks

Cybercrime is an increasing problem, especially for Millennials. College students raised in the "Facebook generation" are the most at risk for identity theft because of their social media habits, according

Study: Millennials indifferent to online risks

Growing up in the age of the Internet, many Millennials don't give much credence to cybersecurity or consider it as a career.

A presidential telecommunications group meeting in Silicon Valley on Wednesday suggested a “Good Samaritan” framework that would let companies and individuals quickly share data with the government in the event of a cyber or terrorist attack.(Photo: Jason Reed/Getty Images)

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According to the Raytheon survey, many Millennials engage in risky online behavior such as using public WiFi.

"As digital natives, no one told us about privacy or online security. We're sort of the test generation, and we're learning the implications," says Jared Benoff, a senior organizational sciences major at George Washington University. "Some people have learned this the hard way."

According to the Raytheon survey, many Millennials engage in risky online behavior: 66% of young adults have connected to a public Wi-Fi network in the past month and 48% have used a storage device that wasn't their own in the past three months.

In addition, almost a quarter of those surveyed have shared a password with a non-family member in the past year, and one in five have never changed their online banking password.

Michael Kaiser, executive director of the National Cyber Security Alliance, says students tend to be nonchalant rather than ignorant.

"It's not like they're naive about the risks," he says, mentioning financial losses and cyberstalking as consequences of being hacked. "Risks don't necessarily paralyze people from doing what they want to do."

“As digital natives, no one told us about privacy or online security. We're sort of the test generation, and we're learning the implications.Some people have learned this the hard way.”

Jared Benoff, senior at George Washington University

The study found that only 24% of respondents were potentially interested in cybersecurity jobs, while about 40% were interested in such fields as entertainment and entrepreneurship.

Despite President Obama's executive order earlier this year designed to strengthen national cybersecurity, 82% of the 1,000 participants ages 18-26 in the Raytheon survey said that no high school teacher or guidance counselor mentioned the idea of pursuing a cybersecurity career.

Jordan Wiens, engineering lead for information security at Raytheon, says action is needed to fill these jobs and ensure protection for individuals, businesses, and the country as a whole.

"There's a point where we need to get serious. Otherwise, we're going to be in trouble," he says. "The way the Internet has grown up, security was sort of an afterthought, which we're regretting right now."

Nathan Lilienthal, a third-year computer science major at Northeastern University, says he is hesitant to consider a cybersecurity job.

"I think it's a hard field to get into," he says. "It takes time to learn all the different ways hackers break things, and it requires a lot of creativity to be able to think ahead of them."

Kaiser of the Cyber Security Alliance says students shouldn't be intimidated when considering cybersecurity as a career path.

"The good news is it's not all technical. What they really need are well-rounded people who can problem-solve, work on a team and think outside the box — and a lot of those aren't just writing code," he says. "People may have a lot of these skills already and may not be thinking about a career."

Wiens says that universities should make it a priority to inform students about careers in this field.

"I would love for colleges to take this more seriously. Most universities I recruit at have a couple students who got interested and started teaching each other," he says. "If you look at the number of information security professionals needed by the government, it's more than what's being put out by all computer science colleges right now. There's a huge deficit we're running."